Brexit minister tries to dodge question by quoting Donald Trump

Written by David Singleton on 16 July 2018 in Diary

Diary

Watch: Suella Braverman was a bit prickly on the Daily Politics.

The number of Tories who have resigned from government or party posts since Theresa May revealed her Brexit plan has now gone up to nine. The latest departing Brexiteer is Scott Mann, who has stood down as a parliamentary private secretary because he is not prepared to accept a “watered down Brexit”.

One hardcore Brexiteer who has surprised a few colleagues by not standing down yet is Suella Braverman. But everyone in Westminster believes that she considered it, after Sky News’ Lewis Goodall tweeted that she was resigning hot on the heels of David Davis.

So did the minister at the Department for Exiting the European Union consider it or not?

When she appeared on the BBC Daily Politics, Braverman initially tried to swerve the question by confirming that she hadn't resigned and then quoting Donald Trump.

She said: "I didn’t resign. There was a lot of news about me allegedly resigning. A very good example, to quote the America president, of fake news.”

When that didn’t work and host Jo Coburn asked again if she had considered resigning, Braverman - who is a former chairman of the hard Brexit-backing European Research Group of Tory MPs - effectively admitted that she had considered moving on after all.

Having denounced fake news, Braverman was then quizzed about footage of her apparently being silently frogmarched down the road last week by Theresa May’s communications director - and tried to claim it was perfectly normal stuff.

“I wasn’t actually being strong-armed… I was just leaving Downing Street to parliament for a meeting and he was accompanying me and we had a meeting.”